Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/466

 to two noted practitioners of Cirencester, Lawrence and Warner, the former being father of the great surgeon, Sir William Lawrence [q. v.] He came to London in 1820, and entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Here he soon attracted the notice of Abernethy, who appointed him his house-surgeon for 1823–4. He was admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1824. He then went abroad and spent a year in Paris. He returned to London in 1826, and commenced to practise as a surgeon. The Jacksonian prize was awarded to him in this year for his essay ‘On Spina Bifida, and Injuries and Diseases of the Spine and the Medulla Spinalis.’ He was elected senior surgeon to the St. Marylebone infirmary in 1831, and was subsequently appointed surgeon-extraordinary to H.R.H. the duke of Cambridge. At the Royal College of Surgeons of England he was elected one of the first fellows in 1843, and he was made a member of its council in 1848, though he was soon obliged to retire on account of ill-health. He was elected Hunterian orator for 1851, and prepared an oration which was printed in the same year. He was too ill to deliver it, and he died unmarried on 15 Jan. 1854, at 28 Old Burlington Street.

There is a half-length portrait of Stafford, painted by W. Salter and engraved by J. Cochran. A copy of the engraving is prefixed to Pettigrew's memoir.

Stafford was a skilful surgeon, whose work was always conducted upon the legitimate basis of an accurate anatomical knowledge. He was a voluminous writer upon subjects of professional interest. He published 1. ‘A Series of Observations on Strictures of the Urethra,’ London, 8vo, 1828. 2. ‘Further Observations on Lancetted Stylettes,’ London, 8vo, 1829; 3rd edit. 1836. 3. ‘A Treatise on Injuries … of the Spine, founded on the Jacksonian Prize Essay for 1826,’ London, 8vo, 1832. 4. ‘On Perforation of Strictures of the Urethra,’ London, 8vo, 1834. 5. ‘An Essay on the Treatment of some Affections of the Prostate Gland,’ London, 8vo, 1840; 2nd edit. 1845. 6. ‘On Treatment of Hæmorrhoids,’ 8vo, 1853.

[Pettigrew's Medical Portrait Gallery, vol. iv.; Lancet, 1854, i. 148; Medical Times and Gazette, 1854, I. 100.]

 STAFFORD, THOMAS (1531?–1557), rebel, born about 1531 (Addit. MS. 6672, f. 193), was the ninth child, but second surviving son, of Henry Stafford, first baron Stafford [q. v.] His mother was Ursula, daughter of Sir Richard Pole, K.G., by his wife, Margaret Pole, countess of Salisbury [q. v.] Thomas was educated privately, and in July 1550 passed through Paris on his way to Rome. There an attempt seems to have been made by Cardinal Pole and Francis Peto, a nephew apparently of William Peto [q. v.], to win back Stafford and his brother Henry to the catholic faith (Cal. State Papers, For. 11547–53, pp. 70–1, 119–21). Thomas remained in Italy for three years, and in May 1553 was at Venice. On the 5th of that month a motion was carried in the council of ten ‘that the jewels of St. Mark and the armoury halls of this council be shown to Mr. Thomas Stafford, the nephew of the right reverend cardinal of England’ (i.e. Reginald Pole [q. v.]), and on the 9th a similar resolution permitted him and his two servants to carry arms (Cal. State Papers, Venetian, 1534–54, Nos. 749, 750). Thence he proceeded to Poland, where on 1 Oct. Sigismund Augustus, king of Poland, and his queen wrote letters strongly recommending him to Queen Mary, and requesting that he might be restored to the dukedom of Buckingham (ib. For. 1553–58, pp. 15, 16). On the way he visited his uncle at Dillingen; but the cardinal opposed his return to England, and refused to give him letters of commendation to the queen or any one else.

Mary paid no attention to the Polish king's recommendations, and this neglect, or a genuine dislike of the Spanish marriage, induced Stafford to offer a strenuous opposition to that alliance. He seems to have been concerned in Suffolk's attempted rebellion in January 1553–4 [see ], and on 16 Feb. was sent a prisoner to the Fleet (Acts of the Privy Council, 1552–1554, pp. 393, 395). He was soon at liberty, and at the end of March fled to France (cf. Pole to Cardinal de Monte, 4 April 1554). He visited his uncle at Fontainebleau, and told him that he had helped to capture Suffolk (Cal. State Papers, Venetian, 1534–54, p. 495); but Pole, fearing to offend Queen Mary and the emperor, drove him from his house. From this time Stafford threw himself actively into the intrigues of the exiles in France, and at the end of April he made an abortive attempt to assassinate Sir William Pickering [q. v.], who, after coquetting with the exiles, was once more seeking royal favour. Stafford's ambition was not merely to overthrow Mary. He was himself of royal descent on both his father's [see, third ] and his mother's side [see ], and, though apparently a younger brother, he maintained that he was next heir to the throne after Mary,